A common feature in current program reproducing devices is random (or "shuffled") playback of programs within a selected group. For example, an audio CD player that stores a multiple of CDs (or "Mega CD player") may be set to randomly play back music tracks from the stored CDs or from a selected subset of the stored CDs. Thus, for instance, a Mega CD player user may create a group that consists of all the Christmas songs included on CDs that are stored in the player, and then select that group to play as background music during a Christmas party.
Despite the popularity of the shuffled playback feature there are some drawbacks in the way the feature is currently implemented. One drawback is that the grouping of programs is time consuming. In order to create a group a user must specify the location of each program that is to be added to group. That is, the user must locate the desired programs by referencing the playlists of the individual media and then input the location of the desired programs into the playback device (e.g. enter the disk number and track number for each CD musical selection to be included in a group).
Another drawback is that existing groups are easily disarranged. For example, the locations of CDs within a group may become disarranged when those CDs are transported from a Mega CD player to a car CD player and then back to the Mega CD player. Such disarrangement upsets the Mega CD player's reference positions for each disk, and in order to maintain a desired grouping the user must once again specify the locations of programs in the group.